Viewpoint Piece Expressed By United States Senate Candidate Casablanca On The Potomac

NEW YORK, April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A viewpoint piece expressed by Bruce A. Blakeman, candidate for the United States Senate in New York.

Blakeman served as the presiding officer of the Nassau County Legislature from 1996 to 1999.  In the Nassau Legislature, Blakeman chaired the Budget Review Committee and was vice chair of the finance committee, overseeing a county budget of more than $2 Billion.

BRUCE BLAKEMAN, CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE CASABLANCA ON THE POTOMAC ......If life imitates art, it is increasingly clear that the current framing of the financial reform debate by the Obama/Gillibrand/Dodd cabal eerily resembles the duplicity of Captain Renault in the movie, Casablanca. In the movie, after years of accepting bribes to look the other way while illegal gambling was taking place in Casablanca, Captain Renault declares "I am shocked – shocked to find that gambling is going on here." The Obama/Gillibrand/Dodd cabal took millions of dollars in campaign contributions from financial institutions while encouraging those same financial institutions to lower their underwriting standards, which created the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. If the underwriting requirements for lending were not diminished as the cabal demanded, there never would have been a financial meltdown. For years and years, the Obama/Gillibrand/Dodd cabal pushed financial institutions to give mortgages to people who did not meet underwriting standards. In the 1980s, ACORN accused lenders of discrimination against low-income families by not lowering the standards for qualifying for a mortgage. In 1994, then-lawyer Barack Obama represented clients who sued banks for discrimination in not granting mortgages to minorities. In 1998, HUD forced banks to give $2.1 Billion in high-risk mortgages to low-income Americans. Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae during the Clinton Administration and advisor to the Obama campaign, enacted programs to provide mortgages to those who were "a notch below what our current underwriting has required". Raines was accused of cooking the books at Fannie Mae while earning tens of millions of dollars. Instead of looking in the mirror at who really caused this crisis, the cabal is "rounding up the usual suspects", as did Captain Renault in Casablanca. Now, in an all-too-frequent display of self righteousness and duplicity, the cabal blames Wall Street for what the President called "loosely monitored gambling". How ironic considering that the cabal is blaming the gamblers when, in fact, they created and operated the casino. This is nothing more than another attempt by the cabal to increase government control over businesses, creating a new bureaucracy and increasing the tax burden on the hard-working families of New York and America. As President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has stated, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. A crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before." While more transparency and reasonable regulations would be a fair and honest approach to protecting the public, the cabal has gone overboard and used this as an opportunity to manipulate and control the financial sector, which will mean the loss of jobs in New York and will relegate Wall Street and America to second- class status rather than to remain the financial capital of the world. The irony of their actions and the extent of their duplicity would be entertaining if it did not have such dire consequences Anyone wishing to follow Mr. Blakeman's campaign can join his Facebook fan page by logging on and searching "Bruce Blakeman" or follow him on Twitter @Blakeman2010.

Bruce A. Blakeman is a politician from New York City who is currently running for the United States Senate in New York against Democratic Incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand.

SOURCE Bruce A. Blakeman